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American Morning

Security Tightened at U.S. Embassy in Macedonia Following Attack

Aired July 25, 2001 - 09:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're all going to look at overseas news now. We understand that security has been beefed up at U.S. Embassy -- the U.S. Embassy in Macedonia today. That has to do with the overall situation in Macedonia. It was one of several Western embassies that came under attack in the Macedonian capital of Skopje overnight.

Angry mobs accuse the West of favoring ethnic Albanian guerrillas and a government spokesman denounced NATO as a friend of the enemy. NATO denies backing the rebels. Today, Macedonian officials are threatening to launch a new military offensive if rebels don't withdraw from positions gained in the city there.

Now, we have with us now Parisa Khosravi. She is the senior vice president of our international news gathering, a very important job for us here at CNN. And we're visiting with Parisa so she can explain to us exactly how we get our crews into a hot spot like Macedonia. There's a lot more involved than just gathering the story -- good morning, by the way.

PARISA KHOSRAVI, CNN INTERNATIONAL NEWS GATHERING: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: First of all, who are we sending in?

KHOSRAVI: We're sending Chris Burns, our bureau chief in Frankfurt. Yesterday afternoon when the story broke, our reporter there, Juliette Terzieff, called us and broke the story that the Western embassy, including the U.S., British and German embassies, were being attacked and she was doing a breaking story on the phone.

KAGAN: I think that happened about the time we were on the air so we're talking about 24, 22 hours ago, I think.

KHOSRAVI: That's right. And of course Macedonia is six hours ahead of us so it was evening their time and we were deciding at the time whether to send extra folks in there to help her out because we weren't sure how the story was going to develop. So we decided to send our bureau chief, as I said, Chris Burns, from Frankfurt, and a team, Dave Alberton (ph), our camera person, and Alec Ramos Quaid (ph), our producer. And they're on their way. They're going to be arriving in Skopje this hour and they'll be doing their first live shot in the 11:00 hour, I believe. KAGAN: Part of your job is to think about how dangerous it is in some of the spots that you're sending people. How do you take that into account and what happens if you send people like this crew into a place like Macedonia and things get out of control?

KHOSRAVI: Right. Well, the first thing we do once they land, we actually hire an armored car.

KAGAN: You do?

KHOSRAVI: They travel in armored cars when they are there. It's a war zone. Tetovo, near Skopje, is, there is quite a bit of fighting going on there. They also carry with them bulletproof vests and helmets. Actually, Dave Alberton, our camera person who's going in, he himself a few years back was injured in Bosnia, in Sarajevo. There was a mortar that hit near where he was and his arm got badly damaged. But he's, thank god, OK, and he's back on the job.

KAGAN: So half the job or a big part of the job is just making sure that our people are safe so they can bring the news. A lot more going into it than just what people see in front of the camera from the safety of their living rooms.

Parisa, thank you, and good luck covering that story.

Interesting stuff, how they put it together. A lot more than just what, as I said, what people see from what we do right here in Atlanta.

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